In the world of fine art, sometimes it’s the price tag attached to a piece that your brain can get snagged on, outsized valuations that seem to boggle the mind. So it is on Planet Car, too, where the cars that fetch the biggest price get all the headlines. That is, potentially, the case here, as this 1934 Mercedes-Benz 500K Special Roadster is of the breed that won best in show at last year’s Pebble Beach concours. It’s expected it could go on to be the most expensive car sold on auction site Bring A Trailer — but there’s far more to the story here.
“My father always took me to classic-car auctions in the 1970s,” says owner Craig Hopkins, speaking from his home in Texas. “And the 500K always hit me from a styling perspective. I liked to build models as a kid, and I built one of a 500K that I still have here in a case in my home. I knew I’d want to have one some day.”
Hopkins’ 500K is the product of both obsession and a seven-year labour of love. Surprisingly, it was his first attempt at restoring a classic car, and you’d have to say this goes a little beyond beginner’s luck. This fantastically gorgeous machine is historic for its origins, but also bears the last touches of two masters of the 500K restoration world, their final projects before retirement.
Hopkins acquired the chassis of this car at auction in 2012. It originally left the coachbuilder with Special Cabriolet B bodywork, a four- or five-seater arrangement, but the body was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War. The chassis then passed into the hands of an actual Danish Baron, who had a reproduction part-fibreglass body fitted before placing it into his museum in the 1960s.
By 2012, this replacement body was in rather sad shape, which was not helped by the transport company accidentally dropping the car off the transporter. However, Hopkins already intended to replace the entire body, clothing the chassis with the desirable long-tail Special Roadster body, in the coachbuilt process an owner would originally have chosen.
His coachbuilder was Casimir Nawrocki of Minnesota, considered to be a sort of Michaelangelo of sheet-metal shaping. Nawrocki is so well-regarded in pre-war metalwork as to have published his own book, Any Impossibility in Shaping Metal, a run that is now sold out. This body would be Nawrocki’s last project before retirement.
Beneath the skin, this Mercedes has bodywork done the old way, in areas you can’t see. For instance, to strengthen the edges of the hood, it’s common elsewhere to fold the metal back on itself. The method used here is a little hard to explain, but it’s done as it would have been with the originals, folded down and up again in a much trickier way. It’s typical Germanic overengineering.
The chassis and engine restoration was handled by specialist Jim Friswold of Oregon, also among his last projects. The “K” in 500K stands for “Kompressor,” and its massive 5.0L straight-eight came with a supercharger that cranked power to 150 hp, monstrous for the era.
Finished in dark burgundy with a well-paired tan leather interior, it’s a stunning thing, rolling art produced by skilled craftsmen of the highest calibre. The original designer, Friedrich Geiger, was just nineteen when he penned this shape, and he would go on to design cars like the 300SL Gullwing and W113 Pagoda SL, as well as pretty much every consequential Mercedes-Benz product up until the 560SL of the 1980s (Hopkins has one of these, too).
As to why the car is being auctioned off, Hopkins says it’s a case of “too many cars, too little time,” though he has nothing specific he’s on the hunt for. The 500K was his white whale, and now that he’s landed it and shown it successfully, he’d like to see it go to someone who has the time to show it in public, or perhaps even take it on classic car tours.
You can head over to Bring A Trailer to see a larger gallery of photos, and to follow along as the bids climb. For the latter, a big number will undoubtedly be the headline. As to the former, true automotive artistry speaks for itself, no matter what the dollar signs say.
[As we go to print, with eight days left before the auction ends, bidding currently sits at US$825,251; the record top sale on Bring A Trailer at the moment belongs to a 2017 Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta that sold in May 2022 for US$5.36 million (CDN$7.42 million). This past June, a Lamborghini Veneno Roadster became the most expensive car sold online when it auctioned for US$6 million via Supercar Blondie’s new platform, SBX Cars. —Ed.]
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